Lol, thanks for the tip…
Occasional Sound Imbalance Issue
I posted an issue a while back where I had an issue with what I thought at first was due to my room sucking out higher frequencies from the right side of the sound. After jumping through hoops to isolate the issue, ruling out the room and my gear as causing the issue, I had concluded that it was actually slight imbalances in the source material.
This turned out not to be the case. The issue sometimes returns, but only when I physically move ANY of my components (even slightly), or mess with my cabling (even slightly). When the problem returns, it takes hours of trial and error fiddling to get rid of it. When the problem is resolved, it stays resolved for as long as I don’t touch any of my components or cabling. When re-arranging ANY of my vibration control footers that my components rest on, the problem will promptly return, every time.
This issue drives be NUTS.... Suggesting the issue is with balance is misleading - it’s more subtle than that, but at the same time very obvious (but only on certain songs which is why for a while I believed the issue to be related to source material). At times the issue is very subtle when it manifests, and at other times it’s extreme. But in all cases, even non-audiophile members of my family (which is everyone else...) can detect the issue. It’s like the air and ambience around a singer’s voice is present on the left of the singer, but not on the right, which is veiled in comparison. Also, when the problem resolves, the vocals in general sound more open and confident - possibly simply due to the ambience and air on the right side of the vocals being restored.
What’s new vs my prior thread is that I now understand the issue to be transitory, and related to physically moving my gear or cables, even slightly. In my prior thread on the issue I’ve gone through the process of ruling out any of my devices specifically contributing to the issue, testing in isolation etc and the issue still remaining (I reversed my amp’s output speaker cables too, to see if the problem would follow the output).
My cabling is a bit of a mess. Currently I have everything but my Rel subs (which arrived only very recently so nothing to do with the issue) powered by my Torus RM20, which in turn is connected to a dedicated 20A circuit. I have a photo of my rat’s nest of cables uploaded to my system pics on Audiogon. My full system details and photos are posted there as well for reference. I'd suspect my mess of cables are to blame with EMF buildup or something, but the weird thing is that just gently moving any component, even while on and playing music, can cause the issue to show up (I suppose gently moving a component moves it's cables as well however).
On a less revealing system or components, the issue is much harder to detect. Removing my PhoenixUSB reclocker from the system for example makes it a bit harder to detect, but it’s still obvious. I’d probably never know about this issue if I had my prior speaker cables, but with my Nordost Valhalla 2’s any issue is readily apparent.
Has anyone heard of anything like this before, and have an explanation of what is happening? And suggestions on ways to prevent it from happening? I really hate this issue, especially because it is a big, big impediment to the tweaking/testing process.
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I’m reading this post with shock and amazement. I have the same issue….
The imbalance typically is to the left. I switched the left and right speaker cables on my amp a couple of weeks ago and it shifted to the right. This proved it wasn’t my ears (and verified by my sons better hearing), wasn’t my speakers, or the speaker cables, or my room (which is what I thought it was). I then went through switching all of my interconnects, moved fuses around in my preamp, installed new fuses, and it still existed. I then removed my preamp entirely from the chain being careful to use digital volume control and the imbalance completely disappeared. Hallelujah at least I know what the problem is! I take the preamp in to get checked out just before the holidays and before I get it back the imbalance comes back again. The shop calls in the new year and tells me with a somewhat questioning tone as if there’s something wrong with me that everything checks out perfectly. Good and bad news all at the same time as I’m back to having no idea what is going on. The problem is sometimes close to non existent and other times very extreme. I was starting to think I’m crazy, so it’s somewhat nice to hear I may be but at least I’m not alone. 😀 |
@sworksone my imbalance issue is to the right. You wouldn’t believe the lengths I’ve gone to isolate the issue. Completely tore up the room as I thought at first that it was the room. Started replacing individual components just to see, but no luck. What makes it hard is that swapping in lesser gear makes the system less revealing, and the issue becomes more difficult to detect (but still possible). I do plan to replace my lengthy power cords with shorter generic cords to see what happens. I suspect my issue is related to my AC power and cords that may be clustered too much together. I think my issue is likely a system issue rather than a specific component issue, because physically moving any component (and in conjunction it’s power cord) triggers it to show up. |
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